Who is the author of the miniatures in Khamsa of Nizami?‌‌

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Who is the author of the miniatures in Khamsa of Nizami?‌‌

There are two manuscripts created by the supervision of ‘Abd al-Rahman kitabdar are: the Berlin Quintet by Khwaju-yi Kirmani, 1078 / 1667 – 1668, and the Dublin Quintet by Nizami, 1079 – 1081 / 1668 – 1671, which were copied jointly by Mulla Barqi and ‘Arabshah al-Bukhari.

The same calligraphers in 1088 / 1677 worked on the Tashkent copy of “Kimiya-yi Sa‘adat” (“Alchemy of Happiness”) by al-Ghazali (there are no miniatures in this book), and they helped Amir Muhammad al-‘Iraqi to compare the text against the original stored in “the highest library”.

In addition to kitabdars and scribes, the names of artists are also known, who often left their signatures on miniatures. These are Farhad, Muhammad Muqim (according to some sources, his nisba was Samarkandi), Muhammad Amin, Bihzad, Muhammad Salim, ‘Avaz Muhammad and Gada-yi naqqash. In the Quintet by Nizami which is discussed here, the miniatures have no signatures and no names are mentioned; however, Akimushkin and Ivanov attributed them to the masters of the kitabkhana of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz in Bukhara. Only the date of the end of copying of one of the poems is precisely known – the beginning of the month Dhu’l-Qa‘da, 1058 / second half of November, 1648 (In all fairness it should be mentioned that in the late attributive registry on fol. 1r the scribe Mirza Sadiq Munshi is named, but whether this is true remains unknown).

You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "Arts of the book in the 15th–17th-century Mawarannahr" (Volume XVII) in the series "Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections". 

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Who is the author of the miniatures in Khamsa of Nizami?‌‌